Kevin's Corner: poisoned pen press

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Monday, September 22, 2025

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: 6:40 to Montreal by Eva Jurczyk

Eva Jurczyk is a librarian performing collection development for University of Toronto Libraries by day and an author by night. She’s published two novels, the third is forthcoming this fall.

6:40 to Montreal (Poisoned Pen Press, 2025) is clearly a nod to Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, including the main character’s name. Agatha lives in Toronto, she is married to Teddy, a restaurant manager, and they have a son named Freddie. Agatha is an aspiring writer with multiple rejection slips to show for it. A couple of years ago, strictly as a lark, she wrote a fluffy murder mystery about a yoga instructor and would-be media influencer modeled on a young woman who had worked in her husband’s restaurants for several years. The book became a runaway hit, to Agatha’s surprise. The yoga instructor, whom Agatha thought would not see the book, recognized herself in the story and boiled over with rage, threatening Agatha with violence.

In addition to her unexpected status of bestselling author, Agatha was also diagnosed with advanced stage melanoma. She’s undergone surgery and is taking medication to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence. She is overwhelmed with grief at the thought of not living to see her son grow up and she’s been unable to do much of anything, include write another bestseller.

To cheer her up and give her time to write, Teddy gives her a round-trip train ticket to Montreal. Agatha arrives at the station early despite the building snowstorm, takes her seat, and soon after an older man demands that she give him her place. The car is nearly empty and she moves across the aisle.

The snowstorm turns into a furious blizzard; the train slows and eventually stops. About that time they notice the older man who took Agatha’s seat is dead. Murdered, the group realizes.

The loss of power caused the wifi connection to vanish, the doors to lock, and the internal telephone to close down. Agatha has plenty of time to wonder if she is supposed to be dead instead of the man who took her place.

Another death, a passenger in diabetic coma, a missing attendant, and a small group of passengers who grow increasingly frantic. There’s a twist at the end that could be interpreted in more than one way.

Reviews on GoodReads are mixed. Some readers loved it, some disliked it, a few didn’t know what to think about it. I find myself in the latter camp, mostly because of a gap or two in the plot, the ambiguous final surprise, and Agatha’s reaction to it.

· Publisher: ‎Poisoned Pen Press

· Publication date: ‎October 28, 2025

· Language: ‎English

· Print length: ‎352 pages

· ISBN-10: ‎1464244464

· ISBN-13: ‎978-1464244469

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4gznnMP

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Friday, May 16, 2025

FFB Review-- Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Coffin Trail by Martin Edwards

From the archive….

The Coffin Trail by Martin Edwards (Poisoned Pen Press, October 2004) is the first book in the author’s Lake District mystery series, which now has seven titles. He has also written eight mysteries featuring lawyer Harry Devlin. Edwards is perhaps better known as a crime fiction critic and anthologist, which is unfortunate, because his mysteries are fine reads.

Daniel Kind, an Oxford historian, visits a childhood vacation spot in England’s scenic Lake District with his new lover Miranda, where they impulsively buy a run-down home and decide to leave their urban lives to start over. Part of his interest in the village is in clearing the name of a local youth he’d been friends with during the long-ago holiday and who since then had been unofficially blamed for the gruesome murder of a tourist. About the same time DCI Hannah Scarlett of the local police force is assigned to clear up a number of cold cases, including this one. DCI Scarlett carries out her official investigation in parallel with Kind’s informal questioning of the long-time residents, both of which upset a lot of people for different reasons. They each gather essential clues that eventually they jointly assemble into a resolution that has a further twist at the very end.

Kind serves as tour guide to Miranda, in between wrangling with the local contractors they have hired to renovate the house, which allows the story to showcase the geographical features of the Lake District. Setting is sometimes referred to as an additional character in a story; in this one the rich descriptions of the region’s hills and landmarks nearly elbow everyone else off the page.

This book was nominated for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival’s prize for best British crime novel of 2006.

Series: Lake District Mysteries
Hardcover: 312 pages
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press; First Edition (October 1, 2004)
ISBN-10: 1590581296
ISBN-13: 978-1590581292

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3GYdbzS

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Monday, November 13, 2023

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Hanging the Devil by Tim Maleeny

Hanging the Devil (Poisoned Pen Press, November 2023) is the fifth book about private investigator Cape Weather which Tim Maleeny has been leisurely producing over a span of several years. The first volume of this fine series was published in 2007 and we’re only getting #5 some 16 years later. Some of us wish he could write a bit faster. On the other hand, we have plenty of time to savor each title about Weathers and his sidekick Sally Mei, trained by the Triad as an assassin and now watching over San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Mei is just the right person for Grace, an eleven-year-old girl in trouble, to find. Grace was in the Asian Art Museum, where her uncle was security guard, when a helicopter crashed into one of the plate glass windows in an attempted robbery. The crash killed the pilot and Grace’s uncle but the robbers swept through the museum anyway and took a valuable Buddha before the police arrived. They saw Grace and gave chase but she escaped and Sally hid her in her secure loft apartment. Sally views any crime in Chinatown as a personal affront, and she enlists Weathers to assist her in identifying the lowlifes who had the impudence to raid the museum. The scene shifts periodically to Hong Kong, where Grace’s father Wen is imprisoned for his incorrect political views and he discovers some chilling medical experiments underway in the jail.

The plot threads link seamlessly across the major elements down to the final words in each chapter beginning the next one. Very slick. The action is nonstop and the points of view are complex, as the crime draws together Chinese mobsters, Russian gangsters, an Interpol agent, and the local police, along with Grace, Weathers, and Mei. The Chinatown setting is rife with realistic detail, reflecting Maleeny’s long association with the area. Amusing dialogue and polished writing top off a very good read. Highly recommended.

Starred review from Library Journal and LJ’’s September Mystery Pick of the Month.

(Get it here as things at Amazon are not working quite right. KRT)

· Publisher: ‎Poisoned Pen Press (November 14, 2023)

· Language: ‎English

· Paperback: ‎416 pages

· ISBN-10: ‎172827916X

· ISBN-13: ‎978-1728279169

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Review: No Accident: A Posadas County Mystery by Steven F. Havill

No Accident: A Posadas County Mystery by Steven F. Havill opens with Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman dealing with the aftermath of a brutal bar fight at the Broken Spur Saloon. Johnny Rabke is drunk and bleeding heavily, a tourist family of four is traumatized, and the unconscious combatant on the floor is Pablo Ramirez. He had pulled out a knife after exchanging insults, Johnny Rabke had swung a pool cue at least once, and had also ended the fight by throwing a billiard ball and nailing Ramirez in the right side of his head.

That fight and the charges and everything around all that becomes secondary as does life in Posadas when she gets a midnight call from her son, Francisco. Her first thought is that something has happened to her grandson but she can hear him in the background and so she knows he is okay. Instead, the call is about her other son, Carlos, and his wife, Tasha.

Francisco explains that Carlos and Tasha were on their tandem bike out in California and were run down. Both have suffered series injuries and are in the Temerly Trauma Treatment Center in Briones, California. Tasha is doing a little bit better than Carlos who is still in surgery and in a very bad way. Francisco and his family are headed to the airport in New York to board their private jet. They plan to fly to Posadas and pick up mom and dad, Estelle and her husband, Dr. Francis Guzman, and go to California to be there for Carlos and Tasha.

Before long the entire group is on the ground in California. As it happens, Eddie Mitchell is a captain with the Briones Police Department and supervising the investigation as it is clear that this was no simple hit and run. This was definitely attempted murder. Not only were they run over once, the driver backed up and hit them a second time. Not only does he want Estelle and the family to be fully supported as they await to see if Carlos survives his life-threatening injuries, Mitchell is determined to find the guilty party or parties and get them off the street and in custody.

To do that, he is going to walk a tightrope as he wants Estelle’s help, but she has no authority in California. He also knows how she is and does not want her independently pursuing her own lines of inquiry or doing anything that could give a defense lawyer ammunition at trial. Things get more complicated quickly as a body is found that could be tied into the case.

What follows is a complicated read that shifts back and forth from the hospital and the patients to the actual investigation of the crime. While there are the occasional brief contacts with the folks back home, the vast majority of the novel takes place out in California. Along the way, the author spends considerable time on family dynamics, the predatory behavior of some men towards women, and other issues as the investigation moves forward on multiple fronts. It is not until the last chapter and the final eight pages that the initial event that started the book is resolved.

Overall, while not the best read in this long running series, No Accident: A Posadas County Mystery was entertaining and enjoyable. Though the tale was interesting, this reader missed the New Mexico setting which is often so effectively used a character in its own right. This reader was also frequently reminded of the idea that it is good to have friends, but having plenty of money to deal with emergencies helps too. So too does having your own doctor in the family.

My print reading copy came by way of Aubrey Nye Hamilton to sent it to me after she had read it. Yet another way Aubrey does wonderful things for me and this blog. Thank you, Aubrey. As always.

Monday, August 24, 2020

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Nantucket Sawbuck by Steven Axelrod

Steven Axelrod’s police procedural series set on Nantucket surfaced recently on a list of Cape Cod mysteries. I’ve gobbled up Philip Craig’s books about J.W. Jackson and Cynthia Rigg’s books about Victoria Trumbull, both cited on the list. Since Axelrod’s series was mentioned more or less in the same breath as these two favorites, I made a point to find a copy of the first book, Nantucket Sawbuck (Poisoned Pen Press, 2014). Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist all agreed this series debut was worth reading, a rare editorial concurrence.

Preston Lomax was a wheeler-dealer, who earned a lot and spent a lot, especially on the mansion he was building on Nantucket Island. He did not hesitate to delay or forego altogether payments to the many tradesmen who made his renovations possible, earning a reputation among the island residents as someone to avoid if possible. Unfortunately with money tight, declining work from someone who should be and might eventually be a paying customer was just not an option for most of the folks trying to piece together enough jobs to exist. Lomax didn’t reserve his opprobrious behavior just for his contractors, all of his children hated him and his wife had cause to. When Lomax turns up dead, unquestionably murdered, new Chief of Police Hank Kennis couldn’t decide which direction to look first.

Lots of characters, maybe a little too many to easily keep track of, with corresponding multiple points of view and personal crises. Hank himself is an interesting guy, a published poet who left California to come to the East Coast and who is still finding his way in his new job and his new town. He definitely believes in the people aspect of policing; at one point one of his deputies refers to him as a “dinosaur” for failing to rely on computers for his collection and evaluation of evidence.

The book is divided into two parts, one setting the stage for the murder and the second for the investigation. The first was absorbing if a little long, but the real action starts in the investigation. Kennis is a careful, logical investigator, who encounters a few surprises on his way to an arrest. Well written, fully realized characters, satisfying resolution. Four more titles follow this one, creating an opportunity for a good summer reading binge.

· Hardcover: 318 pages

· Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press; 1st edition (January 1, 2014)

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 9781464200878

· ISBN-13: 978-1464200878

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Monday, August 12, 2019

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Fogland Point by Doug Burgess

An original mystery with an acute sense of place and plenty of wry humor, Fogland Point by Doug Burgess (Poisoned Pen Press, 2018) incorporates small town quirks, family loyalties, gender politics, and New England coastal history into a highly readable book.

David Hazard returns to his hometown on a peninsula jutting out from the edge of Rhode Island, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. (It used to be part of Massachusetts but Massachusetts didn’t want it.) He’s responding to a panicky telephone call from his grandmother that references blood everywhere and a body. She doesn’t pick up his return call and the friends that look out for her aren’t answering their telephones either. When he arrives, typical of those afflicted with Alzheimer’s, his grandmother has no recollection of her message or blood or a body.

The next-door neighbor who serves as his grandmother’s unofficial guardian hasn’t brought the evening meal yet so David checks on her to find her dead on her kitchen floor, the apparent victim of a broken shelf of cookware and a cast-iron skillet to the head. He calls the police and the wheels of bureaucracy begin to turn.

With her primary caretaker gone, David agrees to stay with his grandmother for a while until something else can be worked out. The local law enforcement become suspicious of the neighbor’s cause of death and begin to ask questions. David’s grandmother claims to have seen a vehicle belonging to a new town resident outside at the appropriate time but her memory is so unreliable no one is sure what she actually did see.

Then another death occurs, this one unquestionably a homicide, and a full-fledged investigation into events, both past and present begin.

Among the cast of decidedly eccentric characters, my favorite is the kitchen poltergeist who washes dishes and leaves sandwiches on the table. At one point David says he’d pay the poltergeist for its work if he could figure out how. Not a run-of-the-mill story by any standard – highly recommended.

Publishers Weekly starred review.

· Hardcover: 288 pages

· Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press; 1st edition (August 21, 2018)

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 1464210225

· ISBN-13: 978-1464210228

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Monday, January 01, 2018

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: A Few Right-Thinking Men by Sulari Gentill

A Few Right-Thinking Men by Sulari Gentill (Poisoned Pen Press, 2016; originally published in Australia in 2011) is the first historical mystery featuring Rowland Sinclair, the youngest son of landed gentry in New South Wales, Australia. While the world is still floundering in economic turmoil in 1932, the political factions of fascism, socialism, and communism are pitch hot, but Rowland is disengaged, insulated by his family’s money and his disinclination to become involved in much beyond his art. Rowland lives in the family’s city home in Sydney which he has turned into an atelier of sorts, with a poet, a sculptor, and an artist sharing the house. His oldest (quite conservative) brother lives in the country with his wife and son; the two seldom talk because of their fundamental differences. The third brother, whom Rowland closely resembles, was killed in World War I. Their mentally fragile mother is convinced that Rowland is his dead brother and that Rowland has died, which makes for some painful exchanges.

Rowland is content to paint in his bespoke suits while ignoring the political turbulence surrounding him, part of the larger worldwide uproar that will lead to war in a few years, until news of his uncle’s sudden death at the hands of unknown late night visitors shocks him into motion. The only witness is his uncle’s older housekeeper, who insists the killers were ghosts. The police don’t believe her and have no real leads. Their inaction angers and frustrates Rowland and he begins to look into his uncle’s business activities to find answers for himself. Along the way he is continually urged to take a stand with the ruling class against the evils of communism and socialism, all of which he has trouble taking seriously until he encounters a plot to kidnap the New South Wales premier and a large collection of guns where they shouldn’t be.

While written several years ago, events in this book parallel much that is happening in the United States now with eerie prescience. Political extremism is the norm, as is deep distrust of anyone who does not share similar political views. Rowland’s attempts to sit on a political fence are not acceptable to any of his friends or family, leftist or conservative. There are repeated references to uncontrolled wildfires in the western part of the land, mirroring the fires that devastated the U.S. West Coast in 2017. Each chapter starts with a snippet of an article from a period newspaper that helps set the context of the following section. Highly recommended. Booklist starred review.

· Hardcover: 338 pages

· Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (June 7, 2016)

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 146420635X

· ISBN-13: 978-1464206351

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Monday, May 15, 2017

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Coffin Trail by Martin Edwards

The Coffin Trail by Martin Edwards (Poisoned Pen Press, October 2004) is the first book in the author’s Lake District mystery series, which now has seven titles. He has also written eight mysteries featuring lawyer Harry Devlin. Edwards is perhaps better known as a crime fiction critic and anthologist, which is unfortunate, because his mysteries are fine reads.

This book was nominated for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival’s prize for best British crime novel of 2006.

Series: Lake District Mysteries
Hardcover: 312 pages
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press; First Edition edition (October 1, 2004)
ISBN-10: 1590581296
ISBN-13: 978-1590581292

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

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